Hope

Dear Readers,

Four years ago today, I hit the "publish" button on my first cozy mystery ever -- Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery.

At the time, I was a nervous ball of energy. Writing a book on its own is a big endeavor, but what you don't really realize until you send it out into the world is that your work has really only just begun. There's marketing, getting reviews, and more or less, building up a whole career from scratch. Then there's the thinking and praying involved which accounts for a whole other kind of work. You hope that the book will get noticed. Then if it does, you hope readers will like it and appreciate the heart you put into it. You hope that readers won't forget about you when books two and three and four come out. You hope that you never disappoint. You hope to always bring a little joy into readers' lives with each book you write.

Going into this business four years ago, I had a lot of hopes. In addition to the ones listed above, I hoped to be able to pay a bill or two in January with my earnings from Christmas River in 2012. Or at least, to buy a pizza one night. I hoped to supplement my meager pay at the newspaper I worked at with a few book sales here and there. And when I let myself truly, truly hope, I hoped that one day, I'd be able to write these books full-time and make a comfortable living where I had enough free-time to travel and enjoy life the way I wanted to enjoy it. It was a far-fetched dream that people loved to say was impossible. And even when they didn't say it, I knew they were thinking it. But I couldn't help wanting it anyway.

It was a rocky beginning. A few short days after hitting the publish button on December 9, 2012, I got my first review on Amazon. I was thrilled that somebody had read and decided to review Murder in Christmas River until... I saw what rating they gave it. It was a 1-star: My first real review ever was a 1-star from someone who didn't even get past the first chapter of the book because they hated the writing style. For a new writer, it was a devastating blow. I walked around for days feeling the sting of that review, wondering if I had a thick enough skin for this business.

But other reviews started coming in -- much better reviews -- and the book was moving. People were actually buying it. I wasn't anywhere near a bestseller, but to me, it was the most promising, exciting thing to ever happen career-wise. I sold about 340 copies that first month, and the feeling from knowing that your book is in the hands of 340 people is absolutely breathtaking when you're just starting out as a writer. There's nothing quite like knowing that all around the country, and sometimes the world, your words and characters are part of other peoples' lives. People you've never met, and most likely will never meet -- yet you're connected through words.

Four years later, and 13 books later, the thought of that still makes me giddy.

So much has changed in my life these past four years. My impossible dream of writing full-time, living the life I always wanted to live, has been attained. Since going full-time with this two years ago, I've been able to travel so much more, live in new places, experience new things, and enjoy more time with my family. I know I'm one of the lucky ones. I try not to ever forget that.

And now, being on this side of it all, I can see that my whole business has been built on hope.

Hoping isn't something you ever stop doing, even when you reach your dreams. Today, I still hope. I hope readers will like my newest series and fall in love with the characters. I hope when my readers finish one of my books, they feel happy. I hope to get another BookBub ad. I hope to make the USA Today Bestsellers' list. I hope to see one of my books or series on the Hallmark Movie Channel one day.

I hope to always be the best writer I can be.

I put a lot of work into my business, but I'm really only one part of the equation. Hope is another part. And another very important part is my family -- who has helped me at nearly every point along the way. They've read all my books, waded through a ridiculous amount of run-on sentences and poor word choice, given me invaluable feedback, designed covers for me, and taught me how to self-publish in the first place. Not to mention the financial, emotional, and spiritual support they've given me over the years.

The final part of the equation has been you, dear reader. Many of you have been with me since Book 1 of The Christmas River Cozy Mysteries and have bought ever subsequent book the very day they came out. You've been patient with me when I push back deadlines. You've written reviews and shared your enthusiasm for my books with me and encouraged me to keep going. I can't even express to you in words how meaningful that's been. And even if you've just bought one or two of my books, or just recently discovered one of my series, your support has been just as appreciated.

Thank you so much for everything these past four years. It's been such a beautiful journey I've been on.

Writing is a very solitary business, but thanks to you guys, I've never felt alone in any of it.

MM

Cinnamon's Lemon Gingersnap Pie

Happy January! 

Traditionally, I hate this month. Christmas is over, it’s usually cold and snowy with bad driving conditions here in Central Oregon, plus, because of those pesky New Year’s resolutions, I’m usually eating carrots and vegetable soup while staring out the window, watching the snow pile up, when I’d rather be drinking a cup of salted caramel hot chocolate with whipped cream.

Well, okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit (especially about the vegetable soup part – I haven’t quite gotten started on my New Year’s diet resolution yet!) But so far, this January has proven to be beautiful here in the high desert. The ten day forecast has every day in the mid-50s. There’s only been one snow storm, and most of it melted a day later. All and all, things have been rolling along great.

Plus, I’ve been able to really focus on my writing, which doesn’t always happen in sluggish January. I’m currently working on a new book that I’m very excited about. It’s not a book in the Christmas River series, but it’s still a cozy and has all the fixings that a good cozy should. I’m challenging myself to get it published in February, so stay tuned for more updates! You can sign up for my email list here to get the most up-to-date information about my future books. Also, I'm trying to do better with keeping up on my twitter accounts, and have recently started up a Facebook page, so please follow me @msmegmuldoon or on Facebook for all the latest. 

In the meantime, here’s a pie recipe that’s perfect for ruining your New Year’s resolution diet. It’s Cinnamon’s Lemon Gingersnap pie, which she often makes at her shop in Christmas River. Creamy, rich and bursting with ginger and lemon flavor, this is the perfect thing to brighten up your January!

Cinnamon’s Lemon Gingersnap Pie

(This can easily be made gluten-free as well. Just substitute gluten-free gingersnap cookies instead)

For the crust:

1 ½ cups of finely ground gingersnap cookies

¼ cup sugar

6 tbs of melted, unsalted butter

A dash of salt

A dash of cinnamon

Combine ground cookies and sugar together. Add cooled melted better, and stir until combined. Press mixture into four mini-tart pans, or one large tart pan. Pre-bake tart shells in a 350 degree oven for 7 to 10 minutes (once the house starts smelling like gingersnaps, they’re ready to come out.)

For the filling:

One 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

4 large egg yolks

¾ cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice (more if you want a real bite to the pie)

3 tsp grated lemon zest

Combine all ingredients together in a bowl. Pour into pre-baked tart shells, and bake at 325 for 12 to 15 minutes for mini-tart pans, or for 15 to 17 minutes for a large tart, until the middle no longer jiggles.

Refrigerate and serve with freshly whipped cream. Enjoy, and don’t for one second feel guilty! As Cinnamon would tell you, everyone deserves a nice slice of pie now and then J

Music from Christmas River, Track 3

Happy September!

As I’m looking at the calendar, I’m both shocked and terribly excited to see that the Christmas season is really just a matter of months away. Maybe I’m jumping the gun just a little bit (it is still technically summer after all) but things do go quickly this time of year. As a writer of Christmas mysteries, that’s both very exciting and very nerve-wracking!!! Lots and lots of work to do between now and Christmas, but I’m looking forward to getting into the spirit of things.

I’m currently working on Madness in Christmas River. The new book takes place during the month of December. It’s fun being back in Christmas River during the Christmas season. This season promises  plenty of snow, lights, ornaments, delicious pie, and of course… madness!

Anyway, I thought I would share with you one of my very favorite Christmas songs for this edition of Music from Christmas River. For me, when it comes to Christmas songs, it just doesn’t get any better than Dean Martin’s album A Winter Romance. When I was writing Murder in Christmas River, I had this album playing over and over in the background. My favorite song from the collection is Canadian Sunset. That intro just makes my heart melt every time!

A beautiful song that’s easy to appreciate -- even when you’re in the middle of an 80-plus degree day at the end of summer J

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Labor Day!

Cinnamon's Peach Blueberry Pie

I got this awesome red pie dish from my sister for my birthday that has “Muldoon’s Famous Pies” engraved on the outside. It's just about the coolest thing ever, and it's given me just the excuse I needed to make more pie. 

This past Tuesday, I came home from work and spent the evening making a peach blueberry pie, much like the one Cinnamon makes in Mayhem in Christmas River.  It was, well... a peach! I based the recipe on one in Bubby's Homemade Pies, a book that is quickly becoming my pie bible. I thought the blueberries in the recipe might have overpowered the peaches, but I used this technique of roasting the peaches before cutting them up that made their flavor just shine. They came out flavorful and delicious, and it was unlike any peach pie I've ever had. The pie ended up disappearing like nobody’s business. It was a huge success!

So, if you’ve got a free evening and you want to try out this recipe, I recommend putting on some good music, drinking a good bottle of beer, and enjoying the long, time-consuming process in its entirety. Believe me – it’s well-worth the effort.

Peach-Blueberry Pie

Makes a 12-inch double crust pie

For the Crust:   

3 cups flour

9 tablespoons cold butter

6 tablespoons vegetable shortening

½ teaspoon of salt (or more, if you like your crust a little saltier)

½ cup of cold water

Mix flour and salt together. Cut butter and vegetable shortening into small pieces, then add to flour mixture. Cut butter and shortening into flour with a pastry cutter until mixture is pebbly. Add water a little at a time until it forms a dough. Split dough into two and roll into balls. Place in freezer for half an hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and roll out one of the dough halves into a disc. Place and form into pie dish. Cut off excess edges and poke crust several times with a fork. Place back in freezer for 10 minutes, then place dish in heated oven for 10 minutes to pre-bake.

For filling:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

5 to 6 Peaches, roasted, skinned, and cut into sixths (see below for how to do this)

2 cups frozen blueberries

1 plus 1/2 tablespoons corn starch

¾ cup brown sugar

¼ cup of flour

Pinch of salt

Dash of cinnamon

Zest and juice from ½ a lemon

3 tablespoons butter

Sugar

Mix peaches, blueberries, corn starch, brown sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, lemon zest and lemon juice until just mixed. Pour ingredients into pre-heated pie crust. Sprinkle with slices of butter, then roll out remaining dough into disk and place on top, crimping to fit around the edges. Dust top with sugar, then cut five vents into top crust. 

Place on baking pan in oven and bake for 10 minutes. Lower temperature to 375 degrees, and bake for another 40 or so minutes, until top is golden, and the house smells like heaven.

Take out and let cool.

Roasting peaches:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (This can be done when you’re pre-baking the pie crust)

Half peaches and place on baking pan. Coat with melted butter, sugar and a healthy helping of cinnamon. Bake for 15 minutes and then place in freezer to cool down. When cool enough, peel skins (should come right off) and remove pits. Cut into sixths, and add to pie filling. 

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did!  

MM

Cinnamon's Christmas River Blueberry Pie

I made a batch of mini blueberry lemon pies this past weekend to celebrate the release of Mayhem in Christmas River. Let me tell you -- Cinnamon has a tough job! I was in the kitchen for half the day working on the dough, mixing the filling, and cutting lattice tops. But in the end, the pies came out great. I had to put them high up in the cupboard overnight so I wouldn't demolish them in a fit of midnight snackery! 

The recipe is loosely based on a Bon Appetit recipe I tried out a few years ago and loved. It combined the fresh and tart flavors of blueberries and lemon juice with cinnamon and brown sugar. It's an outrageously tasty combination, and I think these little pie-lets captured the flavors well. And I think Cinnamon would have been proud of me! 

Here's the recipe if you want to make these at home. They'll make about four small tartlet-sized pies. 

For the dough:

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

5 tablespoons of cold, unsalted butter

3 tablespoons of cold shortening

5 tablespoons of water

Mix flour and salt together. Cut butter and shortening into flour using a pastry cutter. When the pieces become small and gravel-sized, add water. Combine into eight small balls of dough, and wrap them in aluminum foil. Then put them in the freezer for fifteen minutes to half an hour before using. 

For crusts: Butter small tart pans. Take cold balls of dough and roll out four of them into circular rounds to cover the tart pans. Press dough into pans. Prick bottoms with a fork. Pre-bake for about 10 minutes at 375. 

Filling: 

Two cups of blueberries (recipes always say to use fresh, but sometimes you just can't get fresh blueberries. I think frozen ones do a pretty good job most of the time. Just make sure they're mostly thawed.)

Juice from half of a lemon

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of regular sugar

2 tablespoons of cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon of salt

Combine all ingredients together in a large bowl. Taste for sugar vs. tartness, and add more of one or the other to balance out. Then divide filling among four tart pans.

Make lattice tops out of the remaining balls of dough. Roll out, cut into strips, then weave them together on top of the filling. Brush the tops with water and then sprinkle sugar on top. 

Bake pies at 350 for about 30-40 minutes. Pull them out and let cool for 20 minutes or more. Then, enjoy your hard work! 

Music from Christmas River

Dear Readers, 

Now that I've published Mayhem in Christmas River on Amazon, I have all this wonderful free time to actually do things other than work and lock myself away in a room to write all night. I figured I would have a weekly posting on my blog that features a song from my Christmas River playlist. I mentioned in the earlier post that I was listening to a continuous stream of music while I was writing the last book. And if you've read the series, then you know that music is very important to Cinnamon. She's always got something great playing on the speakers of her pie shop! 

So for this week, I selected "The Back of Your Hand" by Dwight Yoakam. I've always loved this song, and I feel like it applies well to Cinnamon and Daniel's relationship in the second book. One of my favorite lines from it is: At first glance, it's not what it seems, but there's some things that I just know, like you take two sugars with a splash of cream...

It seems like Cinnamon would appreciate those lyrics ;)

Mayhem in Christmas River Now Available!!!

Dear Readers,

Hooray! Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas in July Cozy Mystery, has finally hit the digital shelves of Amazon.com and is now available for purchase! It's been a long journey... I've pretty much been cooped up for the entire last week putting the final touches on it, listening to a never-ending playlist of John Hiatt, Dwight Yoakam, Hayes Carll, Gillian Welch, Justin Townes Earle and Drive-By Truckers. In my darkest moments, these fine artists were there to keep me going!

I generally don't have Thank You pages in my books, but there were a few people I wanted to thank in particular, so I guess this blog post will have to suffice. My sister, Cassandra, has been the mastermind behind these awesome covers and has helped so much with these books. She's outrageously talented and creative. In addition, I wanted to thank my family for all their help with these books... they've helped me with so many aspects of the editing and publishing process, and I'm forever grateful for their support.

Also, I'd like to thank all of you out there who have been patiently waiting for the release of the book. Your support means so much!

So I'll stop stalling... Click here for a description of the book!

Cover Reveal: Mayhem in Christmas River

Dear Readers, 

Thank you for all of your patience while I've been diligently working on Mayhem in Christmas River. It's taken longer than I anticipated, but I'm rounding the corner to publication day! The book will be available on Amazon next week. In the meantime, here's a glimpse at the book's cover!  

Waiting on Beer in Christmas River

Dear Friends,

Happy spring! Usually in my neck of the woods, the arrival of spring doesn’t mean a whole lot. Mid to late March in central Oregon isn’t much different than mid to late February. The days are still chilly for at least a couple more months–the gray skies are just lighter a little bit longer. Snow is usually still on the ground, and there’s still a cold bite in the air. But the weather has been particularly mild this year. And as much as I love snow, I haven’t missed seeing it on the road every day on my way to work. In fact I’ve even been able to roll my car windows down on a few occasions—something extremely rare for early spring in central Oregon!

You’re probably wondering by now why a photo of beer is sitting alongside this posting. Well, I’ve picked up the hobby of brewing in recent months (a hobby that I think my main character, Cinnamon, would love to do if she wasn't so busy running her pie shop. And, a hobby that Warren, Cinnamon's grandfather, is taking up in the next book). Beer is big in my part of the country. We've got about 20 breweries and counting in the town I live in, so it was only a matter of time before I got swept up in the brewing fever.

This photo is of an Irish red ale I made – my first real, serious batch of beer. My last un-serious batch of beer ended up as a moldy, undrinkable disaster! So I was very pleased that this one actually turned out pretty decent. It was ready just in time for spring. It took a while to make (about 7 weeks) but I think it turned out all the better for those extra weeks of fermentation and carbonation.

Which leads me to my other bit of news. I apologize to those of you have been eagerly waiting for Mayhem in Christmas River, the second book in the Christmas Cozy Mystery series, to come out. I initially set a goal of completing it by the end of this month, but it looks like I’m going to have to push back the release date into early April. My sincerest apologies!!! The book is taking a little bit more time than I anticipated. But I believe that just like the beer, that extra time will be worth it. Writing a book is a big undertaking, and it’s important to take the time to do it right. So I really want to thank you guys for your patience. I’m putting everything I have into this second one, so rest assured that I’ll get it out to you as soon as I can.  

In the meantime, if you’d like to join my mailing list to receive better updates about my upcoming books and their release dates, please feel free to do so. You can find it on the top right of my home page.

Once again, thank you all for your patience. I promise, the wait will be worth it!

From Christmas River with beer and love!

--Meg

A Little Something about Christmas River

I’ve never really been one of those Christmas-year-round kind of people, but these days, I’m starting to become one. Writing the Christmas River series means I’m going to be in Christmas mode for the majority of the year, as I’m planning to write two more books in the series. Mayhem in Christmas River will be out this March, and Madness in Christmas River will be out in the fall sometime.

But so far, I have no complaints. It’s been fun spending time in a world where it’s always Christmas, with Cinnamon, Huckleberry, and the small town folk of Christmas River.

Christmas River isn’t a real place, though I did base it on several real towns. I live in central Oregon’s biggest "city" (which means a population of 80,000 or so.) Out here, we’re all about beer, dogs, and roundabouts. There are several smaller surrounding towns about half an hour from us that inspired Murder in Christmas River. One of them is called Sunriver, and it’s a vacation resort area for people visiting from Portland. The other is called Sisters, and it’s a touristy western town, with cowboy boot stores, Huckleberry candy shops, and cozy coffee places. Both towns are nestled in the beautiful central Oregon Cascades country, with fresh air, pristine waterways, and beautiful views.

The other place that really is responsible for this book is a little ornament store called Christmas Treasures. It’s on the highway to Eugene, out literally in the middle of nowhere, but it’s pure magic. You can stop there anytime of the year and find the most delightful Christmas ornaments. I am not that sentimental of a person (much like Cinnamon in the book), but every time I’ve stopped at that store, I am filled with the spirit of Christmas. It’s just like being transported to the North Pole!

So even though Christmas River isn’t a real place, it, like most fictional places, has real-life inspiration. And believe me, this fictional town is growing. As I’m writing this blog post, I’m currently working on the second installment of the series. There’s more Cinnamon, more pies, more competition, more Daniel and more mayhem to come. The new book is taking place in July, when Christmas River has its big Christmas in July parade. Between a heat wave and crushed velvet costumes, I can promise you that things will get crazy!

Anyway, those are my plans for January and February. Some hard work, but a lot of fun too! J